Hard Corps: Uprising: FAQ/Walkthrough

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Hard Corps: Uprising
FAQ v1.01
by Zap B.
Zap.Futurama@hotmail.com
2011/02/21
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Table of Contents
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1. Intro
1.1 Description
1.2 Intent
1.3 Terms of Use
2. Tips
3. Stages Secrets and Bonuses
3.1 Stage 1 - Desert
3.2 Stage 2 - Jungle
3.3 Stage 3 - Ruins
3.4 Stage 4 - Capital Highway
3.5 Stage 5 - Capital Laboratory
3.6 Stage 6 - Capital Railway
3.7 Stage 7 - Capital Tower Building
3.8 Stage 8 - Battleship
4. Weapons Tips
4.1 Starting Gun
4.2 (Super) Machine Gun
4.3 Spread
4.4 (Heated) Plasma
4.5 Crash
4.6 Ripple
4.7 Laser
5. Shop Purchases Tips
5.1 Purchase Order suggestions
5.2 Bahamut Specific Power-ups
5.3 Krystal Specific Power-ups
5.4 Harley Daniels Specific Power-ups
5.5 Sayuri Specific Power-ups
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1. Intro
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1.1 Description
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Despite the name, this game *is* a Contra game from Konami. This is a great
co-op game which pays homage to the Contra series, especially Contra 3: Alien
Wars. This game is difficult (about as much as Contra 3), but never
ridiculously impossible/cheap like Neo Contra, Contra: Shattered Soldier, and
Contra 4 (NDS game). You don't need to play "perfectly" (never get hit, burn
through stages super fast while killing 100% of everything) to beat this game
nor to get good end-stage bonus points or S rank. There are lots of enemies on
screen but bullets fly slow enough for you to dodge them (you rarely get stuck
in "Bullet Hell").
You are meant to revisit stages many times to master the stage/enemies (to beat
the stage easier and faster for bigger end-stage bonuses) and to explore (hidden
secrets, gold medals, and 1-ups abound each stage).
The new shopping system in Rising Mode works really well and is well balanced
(i.e., none of the power-ups are useless). Definitely gives you a reason to
score big points to power-up your character.
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1.2 Intent
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This FAQ is meant as a Strategy Guide and *not* a Walkthrough for Rising Mode.
I don't intend of going in fine detail over stage layouts and exact boss
strategies. This FAQ is meant only to provide tips and strategies on how to
maximize your fun while playing this game.
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1.3 Terms of Use
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This FAQ is public. Feel free to post it anywhere you want or use the
information inside it whereever you want. Please don't modify this FAQ in any
way. Please note that I don't often check my emails either, but feel free to
contribute any additional info.
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2. Tips
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A few tips to make the game more fun to play and to save you from pulling your
hair out because of the difficulty or "Grinding" to power-up your character:
-Play with a friend (2-player coop). The extra firepower and support is
always welcome, however the later stages have jumping puzzles which require
both players to move together as a team (like Contra 1's Waterfall stage).
-Both players should play the same character (strongly suggest Bahamut for
beginners) because the Rising Points (i.e., money) for both players go to
the main Xbox Profile (Player 1). This way, if both players are the same
character, you'll have twice as many Rising Points to shop with.
-Finish stages better/faster to score *huge* bonus points (don't just rely on
points by killing bad guys):
-Completion bonuses (which you get from killing *every* enemy in a stage)
go from 400,000 (Stage 1) to 1,200,000pts (last stage).
-Time Bonuses go from 3,000,000 down to 30,000 (3M, 1M, 400K, 300K, 50K,
30K), so beat stages as fast as you can because this value drops quickly.
-Special Bonuses are 250,000, which I believe you get for beating a stage
without continuing.
-To avoid frustration, don't just plow through the game in one sitting: the
stages get much harder the further you get. If you find the stages getting
too difficult, restart from Stage 1 to explore and level-up. Power-ups make
a huge difference. I don't recommend doing the last stage until you buy
almost all the power-ups.
-Never get hit with your powerful weapons in-hand (or else you'll lose them).
Try to get hit only when you have your Starting Gun equipped to avoid losing
weapons. Keep your powerful weapons by switching them in and out in short
bursts. (Y button, shoot for 1s, Y button again). This way, you run less
risk of getting hit while using your favorite weapon.
-It's not that important to do this early on, but you'll definitely want
to be doing this in Stage 7 where the Laser is king to kill all the
enemies that knock you into pits as you climb.
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3. Stages Secrets and Bonuses
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-Completing a stage gives you 1 extra Continue that you can bank.
-As far as I can tell, each stage has 1x Gold Star Medal and 3x 1-ups, which are
almost always hidden.
-Stage Completion Bonuses are split into 3 categories:
-Completion Bonus: get the highest completion bonus by killing all the enemies
in the stage (including each body part of certain bosses).
Value = 500,000 for Stage 1, increasing by 100,000 for each
stage (1,200,000 for stage 8).
-Time Bonus: get by completing the stage as fast as possible (don't need to
kill everything in sight). I've managed to the 1M bonus by
walking through a stage, but for the 3M bonus you'll need to dash
here and there and use high level weapons to take out bosses
ASAP.
Value = 3,000,000 - Need to be aggressive and rush through stage
1,000,000 - Can achieve by being aggressive but walking
400,000 - Can achieve by not wasting time exploring
300,000 - Can achieve even if side-tracking a bit to
explore
50,000 -
30,000 - Spend a lot of time exploring and slowly
clear stage
Below in the parentheses I will list the times that I did to get
the time bonuses.
-Special Bonus: beat a stage without continuing (I think)
Value = 250,000
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3.1 Stage 1 - Desert
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Clear Bonus: 500,000 Kill all sections of Lotus Wyrm boss which is only
visible when he arcs in a semi-circle over you in his
3rd attack pattern:
1) Rise and shoot spikes horizontally,
2) shoots lobbing fireballs,
3) Semi-circle over you
Time Bonus: <6min : 3,000,000 (5:43) - needs some Dashing (can't just walk)
<8min : 1,000,000 (6:27-7:42)
8-11min: 400,000 (8:30 to 10:30)
11+ min: 300,000
~15+min: 30,000
Special : 250,000
1-up (1): Section with 3 wall-mounted flame guns (at the top (room) - go to
the left side of the roof, jump into the sky and shoot up. The 1-up
will fall down.
1-up (2): Under concrete in the quicksand area
1-up (3): On Platform on dry land immediately after the quicksand area.
Star Medal: Drop in the building immediately to the right of the one with the
3 wall-mounted flame guns.
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3.2 Stage 2 - Jungle
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Clear Bonus: 600,000
Time Bonus : 3,000,000 (?)
1,000,000 (7:29-7:58)
400,000 (9:39)
Special : 250,000
1-up (1): After Fortress, jump on a platform then dangle on the semi-circle
vine at the top of the screen then jump of bush platform to the
right.
1-up (2): In the jungle area with tree tops that you can jump on, use triple
jump powerup to get to the treetops.
1-up (3): ?
Star Medal: ?
Boss tip: stand on the right-most side of the middle platform (near the
mechanical crocodile). That's the best place form him to teleport
near you (to your left, right and upper right). When he appears,
let him do his dash attack on you (duck underneath it), he's then
stunned while recovering from this move, run towards where he
dashed and attack him in the back with Heated Plasma lvl3 to take
him out quickly.
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3.3 Stage 3 - Ruins
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Clear Bonus: 700,000
Time Bonus : 3,000,000 (5:16)
1,000,000 (6:04-6:41)
400,000 (8:26)
Special : 250,000
1-up (1): beginning when you right all the way right, the platform collapses
underneath you. While you're falling shoot the powerup pod to the
right while avoiding the green mechanical bugs which try to hit you
in mid-flight.
1-up (2): Climb section with spike wheels past the first two spike wheels
immediately between the 2nd and 3rd spike wheel that travel then
shoot wall on the left (inside chest)
1-up (3): Section after spike walls that shoot out (past the door) there's a
section with two spike wheels that go opposite directions and you
have to hang from the ceiling to traverse. Climb horizontally to
the right in the middle of the two spike wheels you'll trigger the
1-up inside a power-up pod that flies right to left. Let it pass
you and shoot it once it reaches the platform where you jumped to
hang on the ceiling. (Shooting it too early will cause it to fall
into the floor below - which you can drop to if you want to chase
after it, it's not a pit.)
Star Medal: Immediately after the area where the giant bolder chases after
you (like in Indiana Jones) as an area with Spike Walls which
shoot out horizontally. After you climb this area, you normally
go right and there's a floor which collapses underneath you.
Instead of going right, jump higher and climb the walls to see two
treasure chests at the top which seem almost unreachable. I used
Triple Jump to climb the wall above: jump to hang on the ceiling,
go left to the ledge and do a fall-to-triple jump to where the
spike wheel is and latch on the wall to climb to the 2 treasuer
boxes. I'm sure there's a longer way to get there from the left
side of the screen.
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3.4 Stage 4 - Capital Highway
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Clear Bonus: 800,000
Time Bonus : 3,000,000 (7:59-8:07)
1,000,000 (10:42)
Special : 250,000
Use Laser (lvl3) to fight the first form of the boss (giant Gradius-boss-like
Wheel). Shooting all green orbs reveal a cannon which shoots energy circles
at you. You only need to destroy all green orbs on the boss' wheel to proceed
(you can ignore the cannons for faster clear times, although this increases
the chances of getting hit).
1-up (1): ?
1-up (2): ?
1-up (3): ?
Star Medal: After the first mini-boss (black robot with 4 legs) before the
tunnel, there's a power-up pod that will come flying from the
left. Just shoot it and pick up the medal while it's dropping.
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3.5 Stage 5 - Capital Laboratory
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Clear Bonus: (I only got 500,000)
Time Bonus : 3,000,000 (8:16)
1,000,000 (10:59)
400,000 (12:36)
Special : 250,000
1-up (1): when falling into the area with all the conveyor belts, jump on the
first conveyor belt at ground level then move forward (right). When
you see a second conveyor belt show up above you, jump on it and run
right. A power-up pod containing the 1-up will come in from the
right.
1-up (2): Lava Cauldron area, exactly where the Laser is. Go back a bit and
jump on the top most platform to trigger the power-up pod to come
(careful not to shoot it causing it to fall into the pit)
1-up (3): In the area after the Lava Cauldron, in the Green Tube area (tubs
full on monsters on top and bottom of screen. Half-way into the
green tube area, it's in one of them on the bottom of the screen.
Just shoot all glass tubes and walk inside each of them to trigger
the chest containing the 1-up.
Star Medal: ?
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3.6 Stage 6 - Capital Railway
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Clear Bonus: 1,000,000
Time Bonus : 3,000,000 (5:57-6:25-6:40)!!!
Special : ?
1-up (1): Into the wall-mounted flame throwers, the pod comes flying at you.
1-up (2): In the first area where there are two trains (one above and one
below), when the lower train reaches the end of the line (crashes
into "X"s on the floor), first pod that comes to you will be a
Laser. After the lower train drops into oblivion, the 1up pod
immediately comes flying at you on the upper train. Tough to
shoot it in mid-air and grab it.
1-up (3): ?
Star Medal: ?
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3.7 Stage 7 - Capital Tower Building
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Clear Bonus: (I only got 700,000)
Time Bonus : 400,000 (14:17)
300,000 (17:44)
Special : 250,000
1-up (1): Fountain area where the little mechanical red robots spout out of.
Jump on the small platform after the 2nd fountain to trigger a
power-up pod containing the 1-up.
1-up (2): ?
1-up (3): ?
Star Medal: ?
Boss tip: Shoot the core of the boss to kill him quicker - ignore his legs,
because shooting both legs will only make him do lengthy spin
attacks which waste time where you can't do much damage on him.
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3.8 Stage 8 - Battleship
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Clear Bonus: (I only got 800,000)
Time Bonus : 50,000 (22:38)
Special : ?
1-up (1): ?
1-up (2): ?
1-up (3): ?
Star Medal: ?
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4. Weapons Tips
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If you hold down Fire button without Automatic Fire, you'll shoot slower than if
you rapidly tap the Fire button (except for the Super Machine Gun and Ripple,
which always seems to shoot at their fastest fire rate).
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4.1 Starting Gun
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The gun that you start with. Shoots small bullets and does weak damage. Ok
for the beginning of the game, but for the later stages, you'll want to
upgrade it with Automatic Fire and Rapid Fire, which makes it do decent
damage.
Automatic Fire: Bullets are closely grouped together (much more damage)
Rapid Fire : Bullets shoot faster (more damage)
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4.2 (Super) Machine Gun
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Much better than your Starting Gun and very common drop in stages. Fires
incredibly fast and does good damage (especially lvl3).
Level 1: Fire 1 stream of bullets
Level 2: Fire 2 stream of bullets
Level 3: Fire 3 stream of bullets (almost as tall as you are!)
Automatic Fire: Doesn't seem to do anything
Rapid Fire : Doesn't seem to do anything
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4.3 Spread
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Shoots slow, but fires in a spread pattern, which is great for clearing out
waves of weak enemies, but weak against bosses (even if you have lvl3 and hit
it with all 7 shots).
Level 1: Fires 3 bullets (1 diagonal up, 1 horizontal, 1 diagonal down)
Level 2: Fires 5 bullets
Level 3: Fires 7 bullets
Automatic Fire: Shots are closely grouped together
Rapid Fire : Shoots faster
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4.4 (Heated) Plasma
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Great defensive and offensive weapon. The only weapon in the game which can
destroy enemy bullets by shooting them (can't destroy some boss's shots),
saving you the hassle of dodging. Short range shots. Very weak at the start
of the game, but lvl3 + Automatic Fire makes this weapon do incredible
amounts of damage.
Note: This is the only weapon in the game (other than Sayuri's sword) that
can be charged. Hold down the Fire button for 1s to charge it, then
release the Fire button to fire a Charged Shot which travels the
entire length of the screen while "bowling" over all enemies in its
path. Most charged shots can also destroy poison gas from plants and
folliage in Stage 2.
Level 1: Short range small bullets
Level 2: Short range medium-sized bullets
Level 3: Short range large-size bullets (about as tall as you are)
Automatic Fire: Allows you to continuously fire normal Heated Plasma shots
*while* you are charging the Charged Shot! This allows for
incredible amounts of damage.
Rapid Fire : Shoots faster
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4.5 Crash
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A situational weapon. Slowly fires lobbing grenades which do large amount
of damage. You can use the arcing nature of this weapon to hit enemies below
you, but the lack of range or rate of fire make this weapon more of a backup.
Level 1: Small grenades
Level 2: Medium grenades
Level 3: Large grenades
Automatic Fire: Shoots faster
Rapid Fire : Shoots faster
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4.6 Ripple
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Another situational weapon. Shots will reflect enemy bullets back at them
(useful against enemy snipers), but the shots themselves are slow-moving and
don't do much damage. The range of this weapon is also rather short.
Level 1: Short range
Level 2: Medium range
Level 3: Medium range, but twice as wide (almost 3 times your height!)
Automatic Fire: Doesn't seem to do anything
Rapid Fire : Doesn't seem to do anything
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4.7 Laser
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Great weapon for killing weaker enemies, but doesn't do great damage. The
laser has limited tracking abilities and with bend 45 degrees towards the
nearest enemy. Try to overshoot when aiming for the locking ability to work
better (i.e., shoot further than where the enemy is and let the laser curve
in). Very weak at the beginning of the game, but lvl3 Laser is very useful
for Stage 7 and 8 (you can purchase a power-up for Bahamut for him to start
every stage with a Laser).
Level 1: Weak damage with some spacing
Level 2: Weak damage with a continuous beam
Level 3: Moderate damage with a continuous beam
Automatic Fire: ?
Rapid Fire : ?
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5. Shop Purchases Tips
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-You don't have to work too hard to buy the earliest power-ups (500,000 to
1,500,000), but for the highest level power-ups, the best way to score points
is to get the best Time Bonus. 300,000-400,000 should be attainable without
too much work if you are familiar with the stage. To get the 1,000,000 you
should have lvl3 powerups and be aggressive, but you don't need to be reckless
(i.e., you don't need to dash the entire stage.) In fact, I managed to get
some 1,000,000 Time Bonuses without any speed enhancements using lvl3 powerups
and just walking (without stopping much) the entire stage. Generally, you'll
want to kill the boss in his first action phase (i.e., don't let him hide/move
around).
-For clearing stages fast, I suggest buying the weapon power-ups.
-To get further in the game, I suggest buying more HP or Lives.
-For Stage 7 and 8, I strongly suggest buying all the mobility power-ups
(especially Triple Jump and Double Air Dash).
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5.1 Purchase Order suggestions
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-I strongly suggest you to immediately buy the Machine Gun lvl2 (1,500,000) and
lvl3 (4,000,000). Super Machine gun power-ups are the most common and the fire
rate and damage bonus that they give is very significant. It's a general
purpose weapon that completely overshadows your Starting Gun. This will help
you beat stages faster and collect better Stage Completion Bonuses.
-Spreader lvl2 (1,500,000) is very useful, but lvl3 (6,000,000) isn't so useful
for the cost early in the game.
-Aim for Automatic Fire (12,000,000) and Rapid Fire (5,000,000) to boost all of
your guns' damage. It also gives your Heated Plasma the ability to charge
*while* constantly shooting!
-Heated Plasma lvl2 (2,000,000) is very useful, and lvl3 (8,000,000) is awesome!
-Laser lvl2/3 (6,000,000 & 12,000,000) is only good if you have Bahamut's
ability to start a stage with Laser (12,000,000). If you have them all then
Laser is insanely useful for clearing out stages super quickly (to get the
3,000,000 Time Bonus).
-Crash and Ripple are situational weapons (only useful sometimes) so I wouldn't
bother wasting any money to upgrade them.
-Skill-Chips are mostly useless I find. I use Deflect Bullets all the time
(especially when you're standing on small platforms and can't dodge), but you
can safetly ignore all the other skills. The Ambush skill helps you destroy
the energy mirrors in Stage 7 if you don't have the Crash gun or Laser gun.
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5.2 Bahamut Specific Power-ups
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-Can buy Tough Guy (don't lose weapon if hit unless knocked down).
-Can buy Ninja Jump (invincible while rising in jumps).
-Can start stages with Ripple (8,000,000) and Laser (12,000,000).
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5.3 Krystal Specific Power-ups
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-Only starts with 2HP (max is still 6HP like the others).
-Mobility powers are cheaper (e.g., Speed Boost is 3,000,000 and Speed Run is
5,000,000).
-Has 2 running mobility powers (not sure what they are yet).
-Can start stages with Machine Gun (6,000,000) and Spread (6,000,000).
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5.4 Harley Daniels Specific Power-ups
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-Weapons cost less to upgrade (e.g., Machine Gun lvl3 is only 2,000,000 and
Heated Plasma lvl2 is only 1,500,000).
-Automatic Fire costs less (only 8,000,000).
-Can buy Tough Guy (don't lose weapon if hit unless knocked down).
-Starts with 4 HP, can go up to 8 HP.
-Extra Lives costs more (1,000,000 for 3 lives).
-Only 2 mobility upgrades (Speed Run is 9,000,000) - can't Triple Jump or
Double Air Dash.
-Can start stages with Heated Plasma (6,000,000) and Crash (6,000,000).
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5.5 Sayuri Specific Power-ups
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-Only has a sword (weapon power-ups do nothing). Can charge the sword to
shoot a beam across the screen.
-Automatic Fire costs more (only 18,000,000).
-Extra Lives costs more (1,000,000 for 3 lives).
-Most mobility powers of any character (7).
-Can buy Ninja Jump (invincible while rising in jumps).